


hail mary, full of grace

by kenopsia (indie)



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Being afraid, Improper use of the rosary, Kissing, M/M, Not inappropriate but like letting your ghost pal wear it like a talisman, Religion, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 22:37:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11746608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indie/pseuds/kenopsia
Summary: “Ronan,” Noah hisses. “There’s a scary noise coming from downstairs.”Noah did not materialize beside Ronan’s bed, he came through the door. He would have had to pass Gansey on his way in. Ronan does not mention this. Instead he says, “You’re fucking dead. You’re the scariest thing in the building.Apex terror.”





	hail mary, full of grace

Ronan is awake when Noah comes into his bedroom after midnight. He flickers his gaze to him in acknowledgement before looking back up at the ceiling.

“Ronan,” Noah hisses. “There’s a scary noise coming from downstairs.”

Noah did not materialize beside Ronan’s bed, he came through the door. He would have had to pass Gansey on his way in. Ronan does not mention this. Instead he says, “You’re fucking dead. You’re the scariest thing in the building. _The apex terror._ ”

“You didn’t hear it,” Noah insists.

“What do you want me to do about it?”

“I don’t know,” Noah mumbles. Ronan can see him in his periphery wringing his hands.

“Yeah, you do,” Ronan says, feeling his mouth curl.

“Like. Maybe you could light a candle, or say a … prayer.” Noah’s voice is very small, and he says _prayer_ like he was really saying _cast a hex._ Suddenly Noah has Ronan’s full attention.

“Are you saying that your weird noise seems demonic in nature?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Noah says. “But I’m not not saying it?”

Noah is a fucking trip. Ronan is used to having him around, to have someone who feeds off of his manic energy, who laughs at his lewd jokes. He is very fond of him. Ronan gets himself out of bed, crossing to his dresser to paw around in his top drawer. “Here,” he says, finally finding what he wants.

Noah is right behind him, anxiously rubbing his hands together like he’s washing them. He isn’t usually so skittish. Ronan drops his rosary — his mother’s, before — over Noah’s head.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

There’s actually a lot, and Ronan isn’t about to start to explain how to meditate on the mysteries, or that this isn't how he would use it. Right now, it is an amulet to protect his ghost friend from his imaginary demons, so instead, he touches four points of Noah, the gesture seeming strange from the other side, like tying someone else’s tie, and feeling a little sacrilegious doing this for show. “ _Áve María, grátia pléna_ ,” Ronan says, voice low.

“Are you going to —”

“Quiet, ghostboy, now I have to start over.” He does it in full, brief and familiar as breathing. He thinks about doing it again, but pauses instead. He and Noah sit on the side of his bed for a while in silence.

“Should I do that, too?” Noah says.

Ronan shrugs. “You could? But I think that thing is like… a crock pot.”

Noah looks confused.

“No, shit, not a crock pot — like a. Fuck, the pans you don’t wash?”

“Cast iron.”

Ronan pointed at Noah, a habit he recognizes traces easily back to Gansey. “Yeah. That thing has thousands of Hail Marys inside of it.” Generations of prayers. The thought has, at times, both bruised and comforted him.

“Is that what that was?”

“No shit. Did you think I was just spouting off Latin because I know you can’t translate that fast?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.” Noah says, and Ronan cracks a grin. He’s got him there.

“Anyways. I didn’t fuck around with that. You can say one in english if you like but sometimes just having it on hand helps me keep my demons at bay.”

Noah touches Ronan’s rosary with a reverent fingertip, looking down at his own chest. His pale hair spills in front of his face, obscuring Ronan’s view of everything but the curve of his lower lip, which is caught between his teeth. “Thanks Ronan,” he says finally, and starts to move towards the door.

His footsteps are slow. Death row walk. Ronan rolls his eyes at Noah’s back. “Then again,” he says, and it takes absolutely zero effort to stop Noah in his tracks. “You’re not actually Catholic.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning maybe you should stay close in case you need one,” Ronan says, fighting the urge to smile and moving himself to one side. It’s not like his bed isn’t big enough.

Noah climbs in with sprawling limbs like a pup. “Shoes, asshole,” Ronan says.

“They aren’t even real. They’re ghost shoes,” Noah points out gleefully, putting them under the covers to spite him.

“They feel like real-ass shoes to me.” Ronan sits up and dives for them, wrangling them off of a resisting Noah, both of them laughing.

After that, Noah can’t get still. In his socks and his uniform and residual adrenaline from their tussle. “Be still, poltergeist,” Ronan orders.

“Make me,” Noah says, impish grin and canines against his lower lip. There is a moment where Ronan hesitates, wonders if he’s misinterpreting, if it’s just he and Noah as always, two points in Gansey’s sky, if the constancy and proximity of Monmouth Manufacturing has created this and if it matters. He thinks of Gansey, just outside the door, probably building model walls.

“Alright,” Ronan agrees, and throws a knee across Noah’s body, pinning him.

Noah, slight and lovely beneath him swallows with an audible thunk. “Hi,” he says.

Noah’s eyelids flutter closed before Ronan is even leaning down to touch his mouth with his own. Noah feels insubstantial against him, under him, but by the time Ronan pulls away far enough to check on him, he is _more._

“Was that okay?” Ronan says. He sounds like a loser when he says it, but he wants to make sure.

“I almost do that on accident all the time,” Noah says. His cheeks are pink.

“What? I didn’t do that on accident,” Ronan frowns.

“I know. But, I know we were going to. And time,” Noah makes a circle with his pointer finger. “It gets confusing to think about what has and has not happened already.”

Ronan ponders this. Considers saying, _you didn’t have to wait,_ but who knows how Noah’s timing works? Maybe he did.

“Can I kiss you again?” is what Ronan really wants to know.

“You already have,” Noah says, and so Ronan does. Ronan kisses Noah, plying, putting his thumb at the notch of Noah’s collar. Noah’s hands cup Ronan’s bare shoulders, thumbs stroking the line of his tank, and Ronan presses his face to Noah’s neck, just breathing. The cold of his own rosary is familiar on his face.

Noah drags his fingers across Ronan’s scalp, through the barely there fuzz and Roan almost groans.

“Will you stay?” Ronan asks. Noah is pinned beneath him, warm and squirmy, but Ronan knows he could be gone in an instant, a wisp of smoke.

“I’d better,” Noah says his voice a mix of things, a bit of a joke and a bit anxious. “There’s something downstairs and I might need a real Catholic.”

“That seems reasonable,” Ronan says, and tucks Noah under his arm. “Hail Mary, full of grace,” he murmurs into Noah’s hair. He does it in english this time, for his benefit. He always feels closer to the saints in latin. By the time he finishes, “pray for us now, and at the hour of death. Amen.” Noah is a relaxed curve beside him. Ronan traces his back with his free hand and lets himself drift off.

**Author's Note:**

> come visit me @katiewont on tumblr.


End file.
